3.1 Field of the Invention
The present invention provides systems, methods, and software for embedding and using title materials in digital commerce which represent digital bearer instruments that express at least one right, such as those produced commercially by Navio Systems Inc. of Cupertino, Calif.
3.2 The Related Art
3.2.1 Overview
Advertising is an important aspect of modern communications, whatever their form, especially on the Internet. Many “free” services are supported by advertising revenue and many businesses locate and sell their customers through web sites and the advertisements that guide customers to them. Initial advertising takes multiple forms, both electronic, and otherwise.
One form of Internet web advertising practice involves the placement of advertisements on web pages. These advertisements generally include digital media of various sorts (e.g. static, animated, or movies), occasionally include sounds, and often include associated scripts that are activated when a user “mouses over” or otherwise indicates interest in the advertisement. The image is often used the enticement for the user to click on a link to the advertiser's web site; a practice known as “click through”. When this is not the case, the associated script software can perform a similar function, or it can interact with the user to collect information and send this to the advertiser's systems or act as a conduit to the advertiser's systems for purposes of collecting user information, expanding on the offer being advertised, accepting a purchase order or for other purposes. Transactional advertisements are advertisements that permit a user to take advantage of the advertised offer when they “click-through”.
FIG. 1 illustrates a typical prior art advertisement on a web page. This type of advertisement is a “click-through” that takes the user to the advertiser's web site, and does not convey any rights. There are a number of issues that result from this model of Internet web advertising, many of which interfere with the effectiveness of the advertising. In general, these issues can include:                users disabling the required technologies to prevent their misuse by harmful software programs, incompatibilities between the digital media and the user's system,        the need for the advertiser's web site to be available and accessible by the user's system (which may be problematic due to firewalls, content filters or other factors),        the user being willing to take the time to act on the advertisement at the time it is viewed, since there is no easy way to save such advertisements to be acted on at a later time, and        the user being able to recognize that the encoded offer is the same as the offer displayed in the advertisement.        
Additionally, in situations where the advertisement that is presented is chosen dynamically by advertising placement software, the user may not be able to return to the same advertisement at a later time, since returning to the same web site again may result in a different advertisement being displayed.
Another form of Internet advertising involves sending e-mail with offers and links to associated web pages. These offers may include digital media of various sorts, or be limited to simple or formatted text, but usually include URL or a link that can be followed with a web browser to reach the advertiser's web site. This form of advertising has all of the issues described above for web page advertisements except for the ability to delay dealing with the advertisement, but with the additional problem that criminal use of e-mail for purposes of collecting private information or transmitting harmful software is common, and thus users are hesitant to follow links sent in e-mail, even when the e-mail purports to be from known organizations or businesses.
What are needed are technologies that can be used, when combined with trusted transaction systems such as the Digital Commerce System provided by Navio Systems Inc. to produce a transactional advertising system that is effective to create and fulfill advertisements that are not characterized by at least some of these issues. Such technologies are described in the following sections.
3.2.2 Title Materials
A title is a digital bearer instrument that expresses at least one right. A digital bearer instrument is a digital representation of a bearer instrument, e.g. one that can be redeemed by the bearer without requiring further identification, authentication, or proof of ownership. Digital bearer instruments were originally developed for use with digital cash and related cash-transaction technologies. Titles employed by specific embodiments of the present invention are related to the title technologies provided by Navio Systems Inc. of Cupertino Calif. Title materials include titles, portions of titles, for example, such as a specific right definition, a reference to a specific title or right, and independently validatable portions of titles. A stub is one example of an independently validatable portion of a title. Title materials, as used herein, may also include specific instances of digital bearer instruments that may not include a specific right. Titles are presented to title-enabled processes, computers, and devices, which use a presented title to operate on and/or facilitate redemption of rights expressed by such title.
3.2.3 Title Processing Arrangements
Title technology, including various title processing arrangements, is described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/742,253, filed Apr. 30, 2007, titled “Enhanced Title Processing Arrangement,” and U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/439,629, filed May 15, 2003, titled “Methods and Apparatus for Title Protocol, Authentication, and Sharing,” the entire disclosures of both of which are incorporated herein by reference for all purposes. Such arrangements are effective for processing title materials.
3.2.4 Well-Known Media Formats
Media formats are formal or de facto standards for the digital representation of still or moving images, graphics, photographs, drawings, text, sound or combinations of any or all of these. In some cases, provision for associated copyright, display/replay control, use restriction, and other data related to the media data is incorporated into the format design. The digital representation may be stored using methods which preserve the integrity of the original media data, or methods which degrade the media data in various ways, such as loss of color accuracy, loss of resolution, loss of original rendering information, or others, for various purposes, such as reducing storage requirements, speeding display, or for aesthetic effect.
Some media format designs include provision for extending the format design so as to include new capabilities in ways that do not interfere with use of such formats by software that predates or is otherwise non-supportive of the format extensions. Such format designs are referred to herein as “extensible formats”. Some media format designs include features which may be used for purposes other than those originally intended. For example, a format design may include a field intended to be used for comments describing the associated media content, but since software that displays the media has no dependency on the exact content of this field, it can be used to encode other information without interfering with use by software that does not support the new information. Such format designs are referred to herein as “re-purposeable formats”. Some media format designs include features which permit software that supports such formats to identify which parts of the media specify data, and which do not. It is possible in some such cases to add additional information to such formats, in areas that are not included in the media data areas and which are therefore ignored by software that supports such formats. Formats with this characteristic are referred to herein as “appendable formats”.
Media format designs use various methods for organizing data. Some of the simpler designs start with some fixed descriptive information (a “header”), with the remainder of the data being media data. Some of these designs, such as the BMP format, include information in the header that indicate the areas of the file that include image data, and may include information that indicates areas for other data, such as color information. Such formats are seldom extensible, but may be re-purposeable or appendable. Other, more complex designs, use a method known as “tagging”, where a file includes a series of data blocks, each of which is organized in the same way, with recognized marker data (a “tag”) being located in a specific part of each data block. Different blocks may have different sizes and purposes, or varying internal organizations so long as the required tag can be located. The format design usually does not specify how many blocks a media file can contain, or the order required (except perhaps for a required first “header” block that identifies the file format used), and software is generally written to ignore any blocks tagged with tags the software does not recognize. Some tagged format designs specify particular tags that may be used to extend the capabilities of the format. Others use tags with less restrictive layouts which enable a nearly infinite number of potential tags to be added.
For historical, technical, and other reasons, there are many media formats in common use. Common practice or standards organizations have assigned particular file name suffixes to these, which can be used by users and software to gain some idea as to the format design used by a file without having to examine its contents. When files are sent in e-mail or used on web pages, standard MIME (Multimedia Internet Mail Extension) descriptions exist for many format designs that are used to specify the format used by the associated media file. Examples of standard media formats include Graphics Interchange Format (GIF), Portable Network Graphics (PNG), JPEG, “MPEG-1, Audio Layer 3” (MP3), “Advanced Audio Coding MPEG-4” (AAC MP4), and “Flash” (SWF).
GIF, version 89a, is a bit-mapped image format widely used on the Internet. Options include “progressive display” in which the rendering exploits interlaced lines, permitting recognizable images to appear before the whole file has downloaded; and short animations that exploit multiple images and control data within a single file. GIF89a is a de facto standard and was developed by CompuServe. It is described at http://www.w3.org/Graphics/GIF/spec-gif89a.txt.
The PNG specification defines both a datastream and an associated file format for a lossless, portable, compressed, raster (bit-mapped) image. PNG is fully streamable with a progressive display option. Indexed color, grayscale, and RGB color (referred to as truecolor in the specification) are supported, with optional transparency (alpha channel). PNG can store data for accurate color matching. The PNG format was originally designed as an open standard to replace GIF89a for use on the Internet, but is not limited to that use. The PNG standard is described in ISO/IEC 15948.
MP3 is a bit stream encoding format for sound, initially designed for efficient distribution of music files of adequate listening quality over moderate bandwidth connections. It provides a representation of audio in much less space than straightforward methods, by using psychoacoustic models to discard components less audible to human hearing, and recording the remaining information in an efficient manner. Similar principles are used by JPEG, a “lossy” image compression format. The three classes of audio compression associated with the MPEG moving image specifications are known as Layers I, II, and III, with the latter being MP3. The standard for MP3 is described in ISO/IEC 11172-3.
Advanced Audio Coding MPEG-4 (AAC MP4) is a perceptual audio encoding format designed for efficient distribution of sound files over moderate bandwidth connections, but may be used at higher data rates for better fidelity. A variant of AAC MP4 is AAC MP4 Version 2, which has both audio and visual coding. The standard for MP4 is described in ISO/IEC 14496-14.
The Flash (SWF) file format was designed to deliver media content through the Internet. SWF is used for on-screen display and supports features to support this, such as anti-aliasing, rendering using any color formats, animation and user interaction methods. SWF was designed to be extended with new features while maintaining compatibility with display software which pre-dates them. SWF files can be delivered over a network with limited and unpredictable bandwidth. The files are compressed to be small and support incremental rendering through streaming. The Flash format is a proprietary format developed by Macromedia and currently owned by Adobe Systems, Inc.
While some media formats include features which support reference to copyright holders, distribution region restrictions, or other kinds of digital rights support, these do not include explicit support for digital bearer instruments, rights as supported by titles, title fragments or title references, or the ownership transfer and reproduction features needed to enable digital commerce in such digital formats. What is lacking is a mechanism to make media immediately purchasable and to represent rights within a media file.
3.2.5 XML
The eXtensible Markup Language is a specification for a syntax that allows the creation of markup languages for purposes of describing data. XML is a flexible text format derived from SGML (ISO 8879). XML is playing an increasingly important role in the exchange of a wide variety of data on the Web and elsewhere, and is a recommendation of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) which publishes various descriptions of XML and supports various working groups that develop the language. XML is inherently extensible to accommodate new kinds of data in media which use it.
3.2.6 RSS Feeds
Really Simple Syndication (or, alternatively, Rich Site Summary) (RSS) is a lightweight multipurpose extensible metadata description and syndication format. RSS is an XML application, conforms to the W3C's Resource Description Framework (RDF) specification and is extensible via XML. Initially, RSS feeds were intended for distribution of news headlines, often collected from various sources and filtered to concentrate on specific areas of interest, such as stocks, science, or entertainment. The usage has expanded to a great diversity of uses including, for example, forum headlines, new auction listings, updated listings of houses for sale, complete audio programs, and a number of other uses. Feeds can be distributed by a single source, or can be distributed to multiple locations, which further distribute the feeds. Feeds can be viewed online using a site such as my yahoo, or by downloading feed reading software. Some portable devices have the capability to accept downloads of RSS feeds for later use with appropriate software. An example of such a device is the Apple i-Pod. The specifications for RSS are located at http://www.rss-specifications.com/. RSS 2.0 is offered by the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School under the terms of the Attribution/Share Alike Creative Commons license.
3.2.7 HTML and XHTML
Hypertext Markup Language, and it's successor, eXtended Hypertext Markup Language, are the languages used to build web pages. A web page is a document made up according to the rules of HTML or XHTML. Both languages include features that can be used to extend the capabilities of web pages as new technologies are developed. Both are tag-based languages, where a document is composed of text and various “tags” which describe what the text means (text, links to other pages, URLs of images to display, page formatting information such as tables, frames, etc.), how it should be displayed (font, color, location, etc.), the version of the language specification the document complies with, and other relevant information.
3.2.8 E-Mail and MIME
Internet e-mail is based on a standard protocol known as Simple Mail Transport Protocol (SMTP). SMTP was created to allow exchange of text-based messages, with basic data such as the sender address, intended recipient address, subject and date/time of the message included in a manner that allowed software to locate and act on it. The content of the body of the message was not specified, though some restrictions on formatting, such as byte values allowed or maximum line length, were coded into some software that implemented SMTP.
To allow sending of information other than text in e-mail, a new protocol was specified for use in e-mail messages: Multimedia Internet Mail Extensions (MIME). MIME allows the inclusion of images, sound, graphics, executable programs, scripts, and many other items in mail messages which can still be sent through a standard SMTP mail system. Data which does not fit the requirements of SMTP is encoded into forms that are acceptable to SMTP and unencoded once received, with the type of item the data represents being identified by MIME. MIME types are standardized, but the standards are extensible since the type names are just strings of characters. Most MIME-aware software will ignore any MIME type that is not recognized, which limits problems with older software when a new MIME type is defined.
MIME has been adopted for use with HTML, and may be used to identify the type of object referred to by an HTML<object>tag, thus permitting new objects to be specified as needed in web pages.
3.2.9 Advertising Systems
A number of different advertising methods and systems have been developed as the Internet has grown and gained acceptance by the general public. Some methods involve advertisements placed on web sites owned by the advertiser, while other methods involve placement on web pages belonging to others, with payment for the use of the space being made based on various factors, such as number of visitors to the site, number of visitors who “click through” on the advertisement, etc. In some cases, the space may be arranged for by an ad placement company, which inserts different advertisements, from their various clients, into the space for different visitors or at different times. In addition to web page ads, advertisements may also be delivered in RSS feeds, as part of program content in downloaded audio or video programs, or in e-mail. In e-mail the advertisement may comprise the content of the message, or it may be inserted into the message or appended to the end. In most cases, any viewer who wants to take advantage of the offer described by the advertisement must follow a link to the advertiser's web site and interact with that system. Further details of several current technologies for Internet advertising are covered in the following paragraphs.
An example advertising service and method is described in Addante. According to Addante, in published patent application US2001/0036182, a content server receives a request for content from a user computer and responds by transmitting content pages with space for one or two advertisements and a referral command to a direct connect server. The user computer follows the referral command and requests an advertisement from a direct connect server. The direct connect server receives advertising selection criteria and generates and transmits a request for an advertisement to an advertisement selection server. A creative selection server identifies one or more advertisements and sends the location of the advertisements media files to the user computer. The user computer then downloads and displays the advertisement media files to the user.
According to Hamel, in published patent application US2002/0007393, an improved proxy allows click-throughs on an ad URL delivered on a web page within a Java® applet executing on a client machine. The proxy caches cookie information for the browser, to support Java applications that do not allow for placing of cookies directly. When the user clicks on the ad URL, the proxy retrieves the relevant cookie and link information from a host side database, and uses the cookie and link information to help the browser open the correct URL associated with the ad. Additional controls are provided for the proxy, including the ability to filter ads in an appropriate fashion for the applet, to cache ads from third party servers, to monitor applet behavior, to cache/pass on client IP address information, and to perform administrative tasks for the applet within the browser to enhance and facilitate ad delivery between advertisers and their intended audiences. Thus, the proxy acts to extend the reach and access of a conventional applet beyond the resources of a download host associated with such applet. In another embodiment, the applet controls a hidden frame within the browser, which hidden frame, unlike the applet frame, is able to download and plant a cookie from an ad server within the browser. When the user clicks on the ad URL, the browser uses the cookie from the hidden frame and passes it on to the ad server along with the URL, so that the user experiences a seamless and smooth transfer, as would occur from a conventional HTML tag within the page.
According to Auxler et. al. in U.S. Pat. No. 6,379,251, a system and method for increasing click-through rates of Internet banner advertisements is enabled through the delivery of banner ads having a user interactive gaming function. In one embodiment, the user interactive gaming function is implemented as an Internet scratch-off game. Further, the gaming on the banner ad is completed by interaction by the user at a merchant web site. A transfer to the merchant's web site is accomplished by using a uniform resource locator (URL) request that includes game state information. Automatic transfers to a merchant web site also can be effected based upon indications of user interaction with an interactive portion of a banner ad.
Current methods of on-line advertising tie together offers, ads, and the advertiser or offeror's web site. Consumers who wish to take advantage of one or more rights must act on the ad when is it presented to them, be willing and able to interact with the required web site, and must usually establish an account or other relationship with the offeror. They can not accept the offer anonymously, or save it for a later time and if the offeror or advertiser's web site is not accessible at the time, or uses technologies that the consumer does not have or has restricted for various reasons, the consumer will not be able to respond to the advertisement.
With the growing prevalence of security hazards on the Internet, many consumers are hesitant to interact with unfamiliar web sites or to allow certain technologies, such as Active-X, which require software to be downloaded from web sites and run locally, to be used on their systems. Many businesses, ISPs and consumers are using firewall software, security screening proxy servers, browser settings and other forms of security to restrict what kinds of interaction are allowed outside of their own intranets. This can disrupt the functioning of ads which rely on methods that are blocked by such software. Examples of ad technologies which can be blocked by security software include Active-X, Java, Flash, HTML Object Tags, and JavaScript. Some consumers also restrict browser access to data which comes from outside the domain of the web page they are viewing, which can prevent viewing of ads which are linked to from an advertiser's web site.
What is needed is an actionable ad and actionable content that can be acted on independent of the advertiser's or offeror's web site, which can be acted on in an anonymous way, or which can be acted on at a later time. Such capabilities exist in the case of printed coupons, where a manufacturer grants a discount for the purchase of their products to anyone bearing the coupon, and the coupon is redeemable at any stores which sell the manufacturer's products, at any time prior to the expiration of the coupon, but such capability does not currently exist for electronic transactions such as those done over the Internet. In addition, the actionable ads and actionable content must be in a form which is trusted, and which can be served from web sites the consumer trusts, to limit interference from security software or browser settings.
Each of the techniques of providing and servicing advertising materials to users described above are characterized by an inability to securely process an advertisement on behalf of a user and to securely transmit the results of such processing to a merchant web site. What is needed is a system that enables the secure user verification of offers, secure local processing of offers, and secure transmission and fulfillment of locally provided transaction results.
3.2.10 Existing Methods for Recognizing Digital Materials
There is no standard method for recognizing digital materials; however a number of methods are commonly used in various environments. Some digital formats include specific sequences of data bytes at particular locations within the media, others do not. This method is not perfect, since it is possible that these sequences could occur at the same location within media which are not of the media type in question. Some formats specify, or commonly have applied, particular suffixes (“filename extensions”) to their containers, such as .GIF, .JPEG, .SWF or .MP3. This can be a clue, but there are generally no restrictions against using these filename extensions for other types of files, enabling users to use them for text files, other types of media files, or even executable programs. It is possible that some operating systems might not support the concept of a filename extension, or may use a media type's extension for some other purpose. Other operating systems may use the filename extension to determine which program to execute when the media container is accessed.
When a program is expecting a particular media file type, such as an MP3 player expecting files given to it to be MP3 audio files, or an image display program is expecting to be given an image file, the problem can often be dealt with by reading the file and checking for characteristics of the expected format within it. For instance, checking for a specified sequence of bytes at a specified location within the file, or checking for “reasonableness” in the data it finds. For instance, if a file format specifies a sequence of blocks, each of which has an offset to the start of the next block, and each block starts with a “tag” field which is one of a specified set of tags, then reading the file and finding such tagged blocks linking to each other would lend support to the file being of the expected type, while offsets that lead to non-existent bytes, or to blocks with unrecognized tags would indicate that the file is not of the expected format. This method is useful for verification that a file is of a particular type, but less useful for determining what type a file is in general, as each possible type would have to be checked until the file type was identified. When no better method is available, this approach can be used however.
In some cases there may be identifying data supplied external to the particular digital materials. For example, when digital materials are sent as e-mail “attachments”, the enclosing e-mail message will identify the enclosure using Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME), or a web page may identify the digital materials using the parameters of an “object tag”.
While watermarking and other mechanisms exist for embedding materials within existing content stored in specific media formats, there is no current mechanism to embed offers, proofs of purchase, and other related materials within these formats. Additionally, there is no mechanism in place for accessing offers, proofs of purchase, and other related materials embedded within content stored in specific media formats and for subsequently exercising the rights represented by these offers, proofs of purchase, and similar items.